The butterfly which has emerged from the cocoon of Africa’s conservation industry continues to grow in splendour and size. But, while this growth comes with huge opportunity, not all opportunity is made equal. The distribution of revenues remains flawed, urban populations are sprawling, and ecosystems are being put under greater and greater pressure by the very communities that surround them. The remaining intact ecosystems of our world need protection.

However, without acknowledging the people who are living closest to these spaces, any kind of protection is doomed to fail. The history is a fraught one, and while the success of initiatives in Africa does continue to grow, there is a level of complexity that is still missing. Coexistence as a term and as an ideal is becoming more popular, but there also needs to be new economic models which can account for all stakeholders within this perpetually unbalanced system. So then, the question remains, how do we connect these disparate – and increasingly desperate – spheres of society? 

Well, James Arnott, Director for multi-national community conservation organisation Rewilding Africa CIC, seems to have a plan. A self-proclaimed “social-entrepreneur”, James has spent time in industry, property development and has now turned towards conservation. He has teamed up with African conservation powerhouse, Grant Fowlds – who quite literally wrote the book on “Rewilding Africa” – and they are looking for new solutions to some very old and as yet unanswered questions. 

“Rewilding Africa,” explains James, “intends creating a kind of pilot, a blueprint, a methodology for Africa to embrace the communities more fully into conservation and the revenues that are available.” So, “it's about alternative livelihoods… and the creation of nature-positive businesses that these communities can live off.” As James suggests, the revenues are there; ecotourism is currently a more than $30 billion industry in Africa, and this number continues to climb. In some cases, however, so-called sustainable infrastructure has been collecting revenues for international investors, all the while displacing local communities, drying up natural resources, and actually placing more strain on ecosystems themselves. Because herein lies the heart of the issue, the people who are the most intimately connected to the land in these spaces are being crowded out. With a rapidly growing population and sprawling urban areas coming into greater contact with wilderness, the animosity felt between animals and humans continues to fester - mostly unchecked and unabated. As the IFAW suggests, “The number one cause of human-wildlife conflict is proximity.” Similarly, with habitat loss and the increased impact of climate change pushing species to the brink, this proximity is only getting closer. So this is the crux of the issue that James believes they are solving for, it is a model which, “focuses on all the land around the parks where all the communities live, where the problem is. So, addressing the problem at root level is fundamentally what it's all about.”  

It is, more than anything, an acknowledgement of the interdependent relationship of the land and its people, which, worldwide, fortress models have ignored for all too long. Because, although we are talking about the protection of landscapes, ultimately, as James plainly says, this is, “a socioeconomic focus project, you can't rewild until you've solved the economic problem.” Rewilding Africa has called it a “megaconservancy model,” one that looks at developing all the conservancies which exist at the periphery of the parks. This, “model is very much a protective strategy,” says James. Simply put, “if these people that are destroying the parks are gainfully employed, not having to destroy their natural resources, rather… nurture and thrive off their natural resources, then you're changing the entire paradigm of Africa.” Simple as that. 

While James and his team have created a truly innovative plan on how to do it, this is not a novel idea. In fact, it has been spoken about in various forms around the world for almost a century, though it has never been fully embraced. And perhaps it is because the community, the environment and the capital have, until now, all been seen as separate, mutually exclusive entities. It is a hangover from much older, colonial ideals that continue to fester in the collective unconscious of conservationists. What Rewilding Africa is proposing, however, does truly sound like something new. By creating these nature-positive businesses in the conservancies around the Parks – whether that is in carbon credits, green energy, low-impact agriculture, or indeed ecotourism – this model is bringing a holistic perspective to a very disintegrated system. It is lowering the fences of fortress models and using the unsuccessful integration of current conservation to prove that, if you want to protect animals, first you have to protect the people who live with them. 

If the philosophical answer is easy to reach, unfortunately, the practical solution has been harder to put into place. Having been building Rewilding Africa CIC for three years now, relocating to the UK, and working multiple jobs, James admits it has not been easy to implement. “At the moment, our biggest single Achilles heel is that there's no funding available because that funding is held up in existing agendas and existing strategies,” he reveals. Convincing private funding is proving to be the notoriously elusive first step, and there is a catalytic capital basket needed to implement their plan. “Because remember, private capital is blind,” James says, not mincing his words, “It doesn't see opportunity unless it's obvious. So we need to create those opportunities. We need to paint the picture for it.” 

It is a bold dream. Including a self-sustaining economic model, which both empowers communities and protects landscapes, all the while drawing on traditional financial systems, does seem rather, well… complicated. And that’s because it is. But at the very core of the work is collaboration. It is about bringing all stakeholders, including communities – and indeed the environments themselves – into the room and giving everyone a voice and an equal share of the pie. As James says, “this is exceptionally complex work. It's consolidating fragmented landscapes, fragmented communities, vested interest stakeholders, government, NGOs. We all have to collaborate, and it's called what we term a ‘radical collaboration’ in order to achieve these socio-economic development goals.” 

While the challenges mounted against the model are fierce, the idea is gaining traction. Creating win-win scenarios for communities and the conservation areas they depend on is becoming possible. A research and development project created by the National Geographic Society and African People & Wildlife suggests that, “an increasing number of global assessments provide evidence that win-win solutions are not only possible, but also necessary for a sustainable future.” And the reality is that the consequences of not finding this future may be more serious than we can imagine. “It frustrates me that people don't get it…” says James, sombrely, towards the end of our discussion, “[because] if we don't do it, twenty years’ time, Africa's population will double, twenty years’ time, I would estimate that 50% of the national parks in Africa will be overrun with desperate humans looking for natural resources. So, we're about to walk into a crisis if we do not resolve this and take this problem very seriously.” There is a lot to overcome, and although organisations such as Rewilding Africa are certainly putting all of their resources and passion into solving these issues, there is still a long way to go. Fortunately, conservation is a world which has never been short on hope. 

In societies which are seemingly so individualistic, isolationist and unaware, promoting a greater sense of collaboration might sound almost utopian. But speaking with passionate people like James, dedicating their lives to solving the problems in a somewhat cracked system, one can’t help but feel that it is possible. And maybe, just maybe, through a deeper sense of  “radical collaboration” within the conservation ecosystems of Africa – we can create a future which sees communities renewed, revenues replenished, and nature restored.